The Sunday Mail
Written by students from different African countries: Albert Sithole ,Donald Kuutsi, Inomusa Ndlovu, Gregory Samakande, Monica Rupazo, Benevolent Masora, Lucky Bulayani , Onalethuso P.B.M Ntema
[INOMUSA NDLOVU, ZIMBABWE]
We all cried when we came to earth
every child must cry, they said
but ours were tears of despair
for we had experienced the pain
of our mothers while they carried us
we felt the scorching heat of the plantations
her heavy swollen feet from 20 hours of work with us in her womb
carrying us yet she laboured like a donkey
we came to earth on a cursed skin
a skin of no value in its darkness
overworked, beaten and set dogs on
torn into pieces by their German Shepherds
when we were black no one cared
we carried anger within our hearts
our scarred and heavily marked bodies
cried out for revenge and for annihilation
of the skinless man, the savage animal
when we were black we died
we were lynched and burnt alive
we were despised
we were raped and left broken
in the eyes of the skinless man
we were nothing but just black
We took up weapons
we marched in protest
bullets were fired with no mercy
we died a painful death
thrown into mass graves
and mattered no more to a skinless man, the white man
we fought as a unity
we died for a purpose
we were buried together in one grave
our spirits rose together
re-ignited the hunger for freedom
in those left on earth
when we were black, we were
but nothing that counted
we waged war for our freedom
but we died before we lived
to see the day we became people
but my spirit watch from afar
as you celebrate us who died
when we were black
[ALBERT SITHOLE, ZIMBABWE ]
It looks like a treadmill of events,
Farfetched events,
That hung sly on my mind,
Active on my vivid thoughts,
They were the days that we lived,
That cannot be removed by shaking the head,
I live to regret the somber,
Because i lost understanding
With my conscience trembled upon,
Downtrodden by a living will,
Bruised minds, wounded egos,
It’s the days that mold me,
To trust my faith and fight like a lone soldier,
To win this deafening battle,
That wants to guillotine my soul,
I’m made a valiant of life,
Yet nature pushes me upfront,
Tossed and turned in confrontation,
By a hardcore existence
Our cries fading with the years
But we emerge victorious,
Wise and full of intelligence
Strong like a soldier
Through the black days
[LUCKY BULAYANI, BOTSWANA]
When we were born, we were black
When we were black, they dispised us
Then they struck at us like lightning and tempest
Free powers unlimited by the perplexities of intellect
But are we wise without intellect?
When we were black, we realized a thing
It drove us there to mountains of will
It walked us still in the darkest of forests
Of cold hearted lions that hungered for long
In African deserts inhabited by us
When we were black to own them again
Adapt to their system like we have
We remain black we like it still…
[DONALD KUUTSI,ZIMBABWE ]
through the wire
Children of the land of azania united they stood up,
Fighting for emancipation from apartheid
Gallant sons and daughters of azania
Under the shadow of the black days
Facing endless nightmares
Sleepless nights
Thoughts crawling through the wire
Trying to escape misery in pursuit of freedom
Answers to unlock the puzzle of life
Taking each day as it comes,
Looking back how far we have came
When we were black
Some memories can’t fed
As wrinkles write down the story of – on our faces
Even if we plead with the wind to erase the pages
My thoughts have succumbed to forget the struggle the children of
azania went through
Brutally murdered in broad day light
Fighting for their will
I try to close my eyes to let moments& wind blow away the memories,
But my thoughts have become the mirrors of our lives
Even though the future was bleak
Blind folding the vision with an ambition
Dancing in slow motion,
Listening to the breeze,
But they couldn’t listen to the speed of the sound
Fate came in crippling
Shadow of death upon them ,
As they stood firm on the ground
Fighting like knights in honour and valour
Fighting for what we believe in
Without out any fear when it comes to life
fighting for legacy and for the future like knights
Viva children of Azania
Couer de lions
Knights of Africa
All because of you we are free
Enjoying the fruits of your struggle
Even though the struggle wasn’t easy
Through the wire you crawled to the promised land
Despite the black days!!
[GREGORY SAMAKANDE, ZIMBABWE ]
Giggle coughs, I can glide my dreams on sledge
Without pendulous tears hanging, no dew drops on my lashes.
A winged mind afloat, against loops of entrapment.
Ineffectuality ended, grabbed by the throat, I sing until my buccal froths.
Unrestricted empowerment, paper cut fingers as I flip the papyrus hives freely.
Dusting the once bipolar school of its moths.
Proving excellence is paralleled to race.
Immersed in reality, black beaded and unbarred.
My word breath fans glass cuts.
From writing guava booklets with unsharpened pencils.
Index and sand calculus with handmade stencils.
Seed abacuses and tin can toy house utensils.
As a liberated voice knocks through the head like a blacksmith plover’s chirp.
In my mind strength sticks, cobbled materialising dreams.
Ignoring the war that was, I powder my scars.
Clouds at shoulder height like a pirate’s parrot as a soar.
Birds blur into flies in my pupils.
Staring through the vignette pane of history, sacrifice wrote my story.
The Soweto dust, obstructs my lens like fern leaves
A moment that scratched laughter from my lips,
Deadly yet hope orbited the sky in whip sweeps.
History paint brushed in blood, clung to positivity like limpets on rock.
Now I can read, now I can write my own scrolls.
Now I am free to sink in the cushiness of the light.
I can see now! My victory made!
The once chain bound neck now connects my lungs to a freedom filled atmosphere.
[MONICA RUPAZO, ZIMBABWE ]
I’m born African.
In the sands of Kalahari, the jungles of Southern Africa.
In the wonders of Nyanga
In the heat of savanna
I’m born African.
I bare the title of them born and raised
In the sands that I build my wealth.
I hold the prestigious bones
That were owned by men and women
Who fought and died for my freedom
To live in a world free of color and belief.
To live in the continent
Which I will die in and my bones will be buried.
But before I die
I will make my name known in Africa
To make my prayers attached
To the starving nations and children
Who survive on less than I have
Whose hope z vanished and faith z absorbed
By the ravenous heat of the equatorial.
I am my brother and sisters keeper
Here in Africa
Because my parents gave me the African name
Which I share with them
And I will not live in to die in oblivion
Simply because I am born African
I am an African Child.
[BENEVOLENT MASORA, ZIMBABWE]
When we were black . . .
Sunrise was our call for an eternal day,
That which we spent in the scorching sun, only under a whip’s shade,
Our hoes igniting the dry earth like a giant cigar,
We would smoke the dust storm,
With the thundering of machine guns pinned onto our buttocks,
Burning us into ashes,
Watering the estates with blood,
Bodies of our brothers and sisters made fertile composts in the vine yards.
The breath of our evaporating souls appetising our anger.
Being born black was a suicide,
For it was inhuman to survive,
And rather a curse to stay alive.
Only the hope of freedom would abide.
Our flesh was starved and bled,
Do you remember sneaking in the dark to the kennels to milk their
hounds for our survival,
And feeding our offspring on their refusal,
But all this was sought to get the strength we need to hope,
And maybe just enough to die.
It came to pass when the mouse let fall the alter crumb,
Our ancestors forged their rage into military reforms,
Our chained minds lost sanity in unity,
For they sought their eyes on victory,
Marching from our hearts, the cemetery,
Their sense felt nothing but bravery,
Sticks, hoes, slings, stones, arrows and flesh,
Against machine guns, rifles, bombers, poisonous gas and grenades,
Was it a fair fight we won, nhai Mwari?
[BUYILE O.P NTEMA BOTSWANA,]
The day of the African child,
A tribute to dozen souls of a student massacre;
For their upri . . .
Of the law but human abattoirs,
And the cutting edge detained many toes;
As though their mouths couldn’t tell,
When magic fingers pulled their trigger;
To loot and shoot all *Negro *faces on earth,
In the pot of golden smiles but broken, fallen,
Divided yet chanted,
Deserted, unwanted, shouted, mounted, busted,
Bastards, Mormons, morons, *kaffirs*!
But what purpose did it serve, except nightmares;
And torture, for the silent night has faded,
When violent times painted;
The walls of Africa’s cold blooded fools…
With anger and violence against one another, O
fool!
When groups of learned mentors rebuked;
African ancestors for the crisis, but refused…
To be urged for a better Africa, abused;
To be Black in the hands of the few,
African child, stood for their rights but seduced;
By modern slavery; the mental slavery, with piles
of cartoons,
When troops of haters of being Black stood;
Between each street of Soweto before noon . . . Of the 16th of June,
Their eyes shone for the day’s doom,
Their hearts envied blood in the hands of their
victim without truce,
But the new moon;
Had begun its journey of the universe, searching
for the Black youth,
For their melanin skin had long been pronounced
in their rare books,
The books in hearts of many, but written in faded
letters of the truth…
And truth be told, for the Black woman and child
need to know;
Why their land was grabbed and dispossessed by
the anti-*Negro,*
And Africa still cries for her lost treasures,
And I wonder what truth it would measure,
When poverty has walked in huts of thousands
and dozens;
Like sacred dreams,
What world does it seem to be, when traits of
hatred still persist?
O child of the African soils, behold!
For time cannot measure like distance,
But wild to be scattered in an instance,
We are one! We are the remains of mystery,
And taught to be kind to the victim,
For today’s Africa knows
more than yesterday’s system,
Yet our bondage serenades in shackles of
history . . . What freedom do we seek, when we’re born free?
What phantom do we dream of, when a child of
Africa’s tears bleed?
O human’s rights, when united nations behold
their souls;
For the human to be right and wrong,
Were it right to shoot at them, when songs from
their mouths they told?
And stones in their hands they had, but crowded
for a common goal;
Freedom, and ‘‘freedom is coming tomorrow’’ their hope . . .
Our hope, for freedom is never coming any day soon, but a narrow;
Escape from the tooth of a lion’s shadow
Inomusa Ndlovu, SOCIAL SCIENCES UZ 2014
Monica Rupazo, UNIVERSITY OF ZIM, TOURISM
Albert Sithole, Purchasing&supply ND Kwekwe polytechnic
Donald Kuutsi, marketing management ND Harare Polytechnic
Gregory Samakande, I.T ND Harare Polytechnic
Benevolent Masora, Upper 6 MPC Churchill Boys High
Lucky Buyalani, Spoken Word artist & Author : Botswana
Onalethuso Petruss Buyile ‘‘Mambo’’ Ntema
[BOTSWANA] — BA (Sociology) UB,
Creative writer & author of SOUL SEEDS, The Voice of a Shadow, Poko-Puo: Tswana Same.
Students, YOU CAN SEND YOUR ARTICLES THROUGH E-MAIL, FACEBOOK, WHATSAPP or TEXT Just app Charles Mushinga on 0772936678 or send your articles, pictures, poetry, art . . . to Charles Mushinga at [email protected] or [email protected] or follow Charles Mushinga on Facebook or @charlesmushinga on Twitter. You can also post articles to The Sunday Mail Bridge, PO Box 396, Harare or call 0772936678.
